The loneliness of the way

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

-- Genesis 32:24

The synchronicity fairies led me today to this passage from The Mystic Passion of Roger Hathaway.

How can God expect us to find the way if he gives us no guidance?

Hear me! If you genuinely ask questions like those, you have taken the first step. Your concern about your spirituality is the oil for your lamp and you won't be found wanting. Your concern will develop and you will find yourself feeling ever closer and closer to God. As for answers to your questions, there aren't many answers. And certainly the preachers don't have them. But your intensity of devotion will bring you understanding that will comfort you and bring you bliss. Continuance in your devotion will cause the sun to shine for you in the kingdom of heaven and you will come to see and know the place as home, and it will become your home -- even while you still lug around your heavy body. Heaven is not another place, distant from you; it is merely on the other side of appearances, a state of being that is within your grasp, a oneness with God in which you don't look up in the sky for him, but rather know that you and He are the same in a very special way. Jesus tried to tell us this, and portrayed the best example of spiritual awakeness.

And just as He did it alone, so must you do it alone. There have been many through history that have walked that lone path and found the tree of golden apples -- most of them unknown individuals who never knew any fame or material wealth, but who stepped far beyond this world in their spiritual development. Some that we do know of would be some of the Mystics, some of the philosophers. I recognize one as the Buddha, author of the Dhammapada, a Mystic of the highest order and one who certainly did not promote the organization of the spiritualistic religion which purports to follow him. There have been many with words of spiritual wisdom: Zoroaster, Milarepa, St. Francis, Augustine, Herman Hesse, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacob Boehme, Thomas Merton, Tennyson, Nikos Kazantzakis, Francis Thompson, and others whom you should watch for. And in the end, there still are no teachers; the Spirit of "all that is" lives within you, is you, and is awakened by words that you read, as seen through your eyes, whatever the material may be -- daily newspaper, magazines, Bible, poetry, whatever. Inspiration is a two-way street; it isn't just black words on white paper, but is a happening in your reality, a symbiotic event, a spiritual stirring within you.

"Every man must always suffer, die, go to heaven in the Body of Christ himself, and none can suffer, die, believe, or be a Christian for any other" (Sebastian Franck, "heretic," 1499-1542).

In these evil times, we feel more acutely than ever that we are alone -- and yet, like Jacob, not alone -- for he be not far from every one of us. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Selah.